So here’s the thing you need to know in order for this story to make sense: I grew up in a small, very Christian town. I attended a small, very Christian college. The culture was conservative, to say the least.
And I didn’t get married until I was 33 years old.
I think that’ll be no big deal for my friends back on the East Coast. That’s the way it’s done! Your twenties are a time for exploration and fun! You can settle down after all of that right?
Well. That’s not the way it was done where I came from. By my late 20s, most of my college friends had long since married off. A few had already started having kids.
Not me.
This was not for a lack of desire for companionship. I did not sow my wild oats, not even a little bit. I had a girlfriend for six months when I was 18. Another for about the same time period around Y2K. In retrospect, I was a shitty boyfriend on the rare occasions I had the opportunity.
And I wasn’t much good at dating in between times. I’d want so badly to ask a woman out, and also be frozen and unable to do it — terrified of I don’t know what. I think I was broken on some emotional level. I’ve never figured out why. It still bothers me.
There was a thing I’d hear, and it drove me fucking nuts:
You’ll find somebody when you stop looking.
I hated that so much. How could I stop wanting to not be alone? Even now, it’s a phrase that fills me with dread and a little bit of anger.
But.
As I got into my early 30s, I did do one good thing: I stopped waiting for my life to begin. I decided that I didn’t know when — or if — I’d ever find somebody to share adventures with, so I started trying to have them on my own. I took vacations by myself, wandering city streets and getting lost, with nobody to help guide the way. And in 2005, I moved out of my building, filled with college students, and moved to a neighborhood in East Lawrence that I loved, and rented what today we might call a “tiny house” from a friend.
Just days after I got moved, I went to a party two doors down. It was a rainy night. I tracked mud through the kitchen. I promised to come back and clean up my mess.
A couple of days later, I returned to my neighbor’s house to keep my promise. They’d already cleaned up. But somebody was visiting: My neighbor’s sister.
It was her.
This weekend is our 16th anniversary.
Maybe I’ll tell more of the story sometime. But the point is this: I didn’t finally find somebody to share my life because I stopped looking. Because I never really did. I did stop waiting, however. I did stop refusing to accept my life. I did start embracing the possibilities of where I was at, at the time. If I hadn’t done that, I might not have moved. If I hadn’t moved, I might not have met her.
Who knows what would have happened to me?
Her love humbles me. I’ll tell more of that story sometime, maybe. In the meantime, we’re off to the city for a few days to eat expensive food and look at art.
We do the adventures together. They’re not always big. I’m much more of a normie than I expected to be. But she’s always there. That’s what counts. I’m grateful.
I love her so.